Claude

Deus, If you've seen the current TV spot campaign by Ebay on german TV ("3... 2.... 1 .... mine") you will know what a deeply satisfying experience it can be to "win" an item in an auction. It's better than sex. And that is priceless

I've heard this, but as far as I know it is a small minority of collectors that believes alcohol to be harmful to vinyl. It is true that alcohol must absolutely be avoided when cleaning pre-1950 records (I have forgotten the english name of the material, germans call it "schellack") Most cleaning machines come with a fluid that contains alcohol. It must be high quality pure isopropyl alcohol of course.

Update The Complete Pacific Jazz Recordings of the Chico Hamilton Quintet (#175)

Yes, I remember now. The value on the receipt inside the package was overwritten in black. But that would not help if the customs insisted on getting a complete receipt. I've had a few shipments (not Mosaic) for which the customs requested to get a copy of my order confirmation (I simply forwarded the email sent by the seller), and tax was calculated on the amount stated on that receipt.

The policy of these different reissue labels is certainly not identical. Some choose particular projects (mostly material from the 40s and earlier) and do some careful research and remastering, others such as Definitive simply want to put quickly on the market the music that just entered the public domain in Europe. Check their newest releases and it seems obvious. Many artist compilations with awkward titles, which all end in 1953. I'm sure Definitive takes the music from existing CDs. How would they get tapes from Blue Note or Fantasy, when the original CDs are still on the market and the music under copyright protection in the US? They claim 24bit remastering on their CDs, but that could mean that they do some minor editing in 24bit (every PC user with the right software can do that).

I have a Kabusa EV-1 record cleaning machine, which is based on the Nitty Gritty Basic, but is much cheaper because it has no built in vacuum system. You have to connect a regular vacuum cleaner. (www.kabusa.com) There is also a miraculous and cheap cleaning method which uses a microfibre (?) cleaning towel, and a solution based on 30% alcohol and 70% distilled water. It is decribed here, but in german: http://www.vinyl-lebt.de/home-vl1024/CheapThrill.htm I now combine the two methods. The trick is to get the cleaning solution together with the dirt completely out of the grooves, so it will not dry and stay. This does not work by simply rinsing the records with tap water. Both methods mentionned above achieve this goal by different means: vacuum and microfibres.

No, I didn't ask them to do that. In fact it is very unusual for a company to declare a value which is lower than the real value, because this is not in conformity with the customs rules. Many US internet stores state in their conditions that they do not accept requests to declare a wrong value or declare the package as a gift (BTW: in the EU, the same customs rule apply to gifts, so that won't help anyway) I ordered most of my Mosaic sets in 2002, when our customs administration was overloaded with shipments coming from overseas, because of the increasing internet ordering activity (mainly US DVDs). They didn't have the time to check if the value indicated on the customs sticker was correct (by opening the package and checking the receipt), but they occasionally do that now.

Rules on customs tax are largely harmonized now in the EU. In my country, for goods with a value below 350 Euro, I pay 3,5% import tax and VAT, rounded up to 19% total of the value of the goods. Check the website of your customs administration. You need to make sure the package is shipped through the postal service only. Private mail companies tend to rip you off by charging service fees for the customs declaration (up to $20 !!). With most of the sets I ordered, I paid no customs tax at all, because Mosaic indicated a value of $5 per disc on the customs sticker. In principle, tax has to be paid for all packages which have a value over 22 Euro (44 Euro for private to private shipments), but the customs administration lets through many packages with a value below 50 Euro without charging tax.

Probably not Candid (recorded in the 60's), but Prestige, Blue Note recording from pre-1954.. There is a difference between US and european copyright law: the duration of the protection of sound recordings is 50 years in Europe, and has been extended to 70 years in the US a few years ago. This means that recordings from 1953 or older are in the public domain in Europe, but still protected in the US. Definitive Records from Spain has specialized on reissues of this material and closely follows the 50 year dateline. These CDs are considered bootlegs in the US, but they are openly sold by many online stores.

As far as I know, this only works with Fedex and similar companies, but the price is usually 2 to 3 times higher than airmail.

None of my 50+ CD orders from the US (including a dozen Mosaics) got lost or damaged. All were sent through regular uninsured, unregistered Airmail.

Murder. The victim consented, that's why it was considered manslaughter only. In English this word actually makes sense in this case.

If the Applause CDs are made from the same tapes that Liberty used in the early 90's to release some Blue Note CDs, I would avoid them. I had a Liberty reissue CD of "Expansions" and returned it after hearing the first 30 seconds. It sounded like a worn cassette. The Applause releases can of course be different, but both companies were Blue Note licensees in the 70s, so they probably had tape copies used fro LP production. http://kleene.ss.uci.edu/~rmay/Bluenote.html

A more complete alien guide to the USA (... and the World and Everything) is available here: H2G2 Check this entry: Driving Etiquette - USA

This seems indeed to be written for aliens. Most things are so similar to european culture or probably common to all western cultures that they would not be worth mentioning. I like the "vulgar gesture" warning (page 13)

Manslaughter verdict for cannibal (BBC News, January 30, 2004)

Maybe it's not a RVG but a 40th anniversary deluxe reissue ...

Weird Sex Laws :

Who/where is #1 ?

http://www.beveragebusiness.com/art98/bradfordl0104.html Miles Davis "Think different" poster

Hey, that's a nice surprise! I wonder what material that is, reissues or previously unreleased stuff? Could this be an unlimited Mosaic set like the Charlie Parker box, because no label is involved. Liebman certainly couldn't get a better opportunity to have his material released.

Or any other public place that has electricity

Those are the first european DVD releases of the Jazz Casual shows (2 shows on one DVD). There are more interesting combinations avaialble now from the same editor IDEM (Spain) - "Four tenors": Rollins, Coltrane, Webster, Lloyd - Mulligan, Pepper, Farmer I have those DVDs and highly recommend them. Essential historical documents in acceptable picture and sound quality. Most interviews are also very interesting

These are 4 Jazz Casual shows. The Webster set, which has Jimmy Witherspoon singing, is probably less interesting for Coltrane, Rollins and Lloyd fans, but for the price it is great value even if you want only 2 of the sets.

No Room for Squares